The Game Composer’s Blog

The minute loop and the Shepard tone.

Oh my. It’s been FAR too long since I’ve posted here and I must get back to doing this blog more regularly. So without further delay, here’s a little something to help you get the most you can out of a minute-long music loop.

The best way to make a minute seem like longer than a minute is to keep repetition to a minimum. The whole tune is going to be looped again and again, so why have things repeat internally? Music is generally structured in one of two ways, A->B->A or A->B. Music either returns home to the opening material (which is usually very nice, since we are temporal beings who tend to enjoy temporal art more when we recognize it and become more familiar with it) or it takes us on a journey from one place to another… home to somewhere else (a more risky proposition since the listener can become overwhelmed and unsure of what exactly is going on with no familiar landmarks to hold on to).

In concert music, ABA is king. The second A is pleasing and indicative of the end. In game music, AB should be king. Since game music usually loops, AB effectively becomes ABABABABABA… and so on. If you were to do ABA, there would be too much A. ABAABAABAABAABA… Yikes.

Of course, this is a very simplified example. In AB form, A and B are not each going to get 30 seconds. And in ABA form, A will not get 40 seconds while B gets only 20. When I speak of using AB form for looping music, I really mean that the music should take us on a journey that sets it up so that the listener will not recognize that A has returned. And that is best done harmonically. This is where the Shepard tone comes in.

The Shepard tone is a never-ending loop that appears to go either up or down forever. Hear an example and read more about about it here at Wikipedia. The listener can’t discern when the tone repeats itself and this is exactly what you should be going for as you construct your minute loop. Of course, this won’t be done in exactly the same way as a Shepard tone. That’s just an extreme example, but the end result should be the same.

Surprise the listener with your harmonic progression. Don’t give as I-IV-V-I in your loop. Take us somewhere unexpected, but make your last chord bring us back to I in a way that’s consistent with the rest of your piece. Often that means it’s not a dominant V chord. It could be chromatic or something else a little more interesting. Yes, the listener may feel a little overwhelmed at first but the beauty of it is that they’re playing a video game and music isn’t foremost on their minds. As it repeats a couple of times, their minds will grow accustomed to the journey your music is taking them through and they will get a never-ending sense of progression as the beginning of your loop flows so naturally from the end of your loop.

As an aside, and something that I’ve mentioned here before, this is another reason why techno music is so ill-suited to video games. Techno, at its core, is one of the most repetitive genres around. It’s cheap and easy to create, which is why I think it’s been used in so many video games. But it’s tiring. So tiring. 8 measures of drums, then those drums repeated with bass, then all of that repeated with some pad, and so on…

That’s not to say that techno instrumentation can’t be used as a force for good. It definitely can. But used in its typical way… not so great.

Anyway, I hope the concept of the Shepard tone can help you construct your next minute loop in a more interesting way. This is all pretty abstract stuff so when I find an example that I think can be useful, I like to let you know about it.

May 11, 2009 - Posted by thegamecomposer | Music Nitty Gritty | Shpeard tone, structure